TJG & Robert D. Bielecki Foundation presents
Kris Davis’ Pyroclastic Records Festival
’Two Pianos, In Conversation’
May 17th
7.30pm Kris Davis & Craig Taborn
9.30pm Sylvie Courvoisier & Cory Smythe
May 18th
7.30pm Angelica Sanchez & Marilyn Crispell
9.30pm Benoit Delbecq & Kris Davis
Kris Davis, founder of Pyroclastic Records, presents a series of two piano concerts featuring six internationally acclaimed Pyroclastic artists. Each piano duo will perform music from their Pyroclastic album release; Octopus- Kris Davis and Craig Taborn, The Rite of Spring/Spectre d'un songe- Sylvie Courvoisier and Cory Smythe, How to Turn the Moon- Angelica Sanchez and Marilyn Crispell, The Weight of Light- Benoit Delbecq (joined by Kris Davis for this concert)
This festival is a fundraiser for a new Pyroclastic educational initiative, the International Creators and Collaborators Workshop, and all funds raised will go towards scholarships for students. For more information, visit www.imccw.org
Kris Davis, founder of Pyroclastic Records, presents a series of two piano concerts featuring six internationally acclaimed Pyroclastic artists. Each piano duo will perform music from their Pyroclastic album release; Octopus- Kris Davis & Craig Taborn, The Rite of Spring/Spectre d'un songe- Sylvie Courvoisier & Cory Smythe, How to Turn the Moon- Angelica Sanchez & Marilyn Crispell, The Weight of Light- Benoit Delbecq (joined by Kris Davis for this concert).
This festival is a fundraiser for a new Pyroclastic educational initiative, the International Creators and Collaborators Workshop, and all funds raised will go towards scholarships for students. For more information, visit www.imccw.org
KRIS DAVIS
Pianist-composer Kris Davis was named 2017 Rising Star Pianist/2018 Rising Star Artist in Downbeat magazine and dubbed one of the music’s top up-and-comers in a 2012 New York Times article titled “New Pilots at the Keyboard,” saying: “One method for deciding where to hear jazz on a given night has been to track down the pianist Kris Davis.” To date, Davis has released twelve recordings as leader. Her 2016 release, Duopoly, made The New York Times, Pop Matters, NPR, LA Times, and Jazz Times best albums of 2016. Davis works as a collaborator and side person with artists such as John Zorn, Terri Lyne Carrington, Craig Taborn, Tyshawn Sorey, Eric Revis, Michael Formanek, Tony Malaby, Ingrid Laubrock, Julian Lage, Mary Halvorson and Tom Rainey. Davis received a Doris Duke Impact award in 2015 and multiple commissions to compose new works from The Shifting Foundation, The Jazz Gallery/Jerome Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is the Associate Program Director of Creative Development for the Insitute Jazz and Gender Justice at Berklee College of Music.
CRAIG TABORN
Craig Marvin Taborn is an American pianist, organist, keyboardist and composer. He works solo and in bands, mostly playing various forms of jazz. He started playing piano and Moog synthesizer as an adolescent and was influenced at an early stage by a wide range of music, including by the freedom expressed in recordings of free jazz and contemporary classical music.
While at university, Taborn toured and recorded with jazz saxophonist James Carter. Taborn went on to play with numerous other musicians in electronic and acoustic settings, while also building a reputation as a solo pianist. He has a range of styles, and often adapts his playing to the nature of the instrument and the sounds that he can make it produce. His improvising, particularly for solo piano, often adopts a modular approach, in which he begins with small units of melody and rhythm and then develops them into larger forms and structures.
In 2011, Down Beat magazine chose Taborn as winner of the electric keyboard category, as well as rising star in both the piano and organ categories. By mid-2017, Taborn had released nine albums as leader or co-leader, and had appeared on more than ninety as a sideman.
SYLVIE COURVOISIER
Pianist/composer Sylvie Courvoisier has led several groups over the years and has recorded 8 albums as a band leader – solo, in Trio with with Kenny Wollesen & Drew Gress or leading other ensembles (Lonelyville ,Abaton, Ocre ) and appeared in about 50 albums (25 Cds co-leader and 25 cds as a side person) for different labels, notably ECM , Tzadik and Intakt Records.
Courvoisier has performed and recorded with John Zorn, Yusef Lateef, Mark Feldman, Erik Friedlander, Tim Berne, Nate Wooley, Susie Ibarra, Wadada Leo Smith and the flamenco dancer Israel Galvan among others.
Currently, she is the leader her own Trio with Kenny Wollesen and Drew Gress ; co-leads Miller’s Tale Quartet with Evan Parker, Ikue Mori and Mark Feldman and is a member of Mephista. Since 1997, she performs regularly in solo and in Duo with Mark Feldman.
CORY SMYTHE
Pianist Cory Smythe has worked closely with pioneering artists in new, improvisatory, and classical music, including saxophonist-composer Steve Lehman, violinist Hilary Hahn, and multidisciplinary composers from Anthony Braxton to Zosha Di Castri. His own music “dissolves the lines between composition and improvisation with rigor” (Chicago Reader), and his first record was praised by Jason Moran as “hands down one of the best solo recordings I’ve ever heard.” Smythe has been featured at the Newport Jazz, Wien Modern, Nordic Music Days, Approximation, Concorso Busoni, and Darmstadt festivals, as well as at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart festival, where he was recently invited to premiere new work created in collaboration with Peter Evans and Craig Taborn. He has received commissions from Milwaukee’s Present Music, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the International Contemporary Ensemble, of which he is a longtime member, and the Shifting Foundation, which supported his 2018 release on the Pyroclastic label (and first album as a bandleader), Circulate Susanna. Smythe received a Grammy award for his work with Ms. Hahn and plays regularly in the critically acclaimed Tyshawn Sorey Trio.
ANGELICA SANCHEZ
Pianist/Composer/Educator Angelica Sanchez moved to New York from Arizona in 1994. Since moving to the East Coast Sanchez has played with such players as: Wadada Leo Smith, Paul Motian, Richard Davis, Chad Taylor, Chris Lightcap, Rob Mazurek, Vincent Chancey, Susie Ibarra, Tim Berne, Mario Pavone, Mark Dresser, Ben Monder and many more. Sanchez leads many groups including her own quintet featuring Marc Ducret, Tony Malaby, Drew Gress, and Tom Rainey. Her music has been recognized in international publications like, ” Jazz Times Magazine”, The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and many more. She was also the 2008 recipient of the French/American Chamber Music America grant and the 2011 Rockefellers Brothers Pocantico artist residency. Her CD “Life Between” was chosen as one of years best recording 2009 in “The New York City Jazz Record (formerly AllAboutJazz-New York).” Her debut solo CD “A Little House” was featured on NPR’s Weekend Edition in May 2011. Her latest CD “Wires & Moss” featuring her Quintet was chosen as one of best Releases of 2012 in “The New York City Jazz Record (formerly AllAboutJazz-New York).” Her Duo CD “Twine Forest” with Wadada Leo Smith received Honorable Mention as a best release in 2013 in “The New York City Jazz Record.” Angelica has a Master’s in Arranging from William Paterson University.
MARILYN CRISPELL
Marilyn Crispell has been a composer and performer of contemporary improvised music since 1978. For ten years, she was a member of the Anthony Braxton Quartet and the Reggie Workman Ensemble, and she has performed and recorded extensively as a soloist and with players on the American and international jazz scene, also working with dancers, poets, film-makers and visual artists, and teaching workshops in improvisation. She has been the recipient of three New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship grants, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a Mary Flagler Cary Charitable Trust composition commission.
BENOÎT DELBECQ
« A thoughtful chill runs through the music of Benoît Delbecq, a French pianist of investigative temperament and crystalline technique. There’s a ton of compressed energy in his playing, but he projects an unflappable calm ». These lines from the New York Times in 2010 by jazz critic Nate Chinen are a pertinent description of Delbecq’s undocile music.
Delbecq is a multi-awarded Parisian pianist and composer, a trendsetter who persists in developing his ideas in a very rhythmic and multi-layered approach, bringing the soul of jazz to John Cage’s prepared piano. Delbecq may prepare just a few strings with wood sticks, then sit at the piano transforming the instrument into a percussion-and-piano ensemble.
Delbecq has been active as the founder of the Hask Collective Paris (1992-2004) and is presently a founding member of Bureau de Son Paris (2008) and the dStream label. He is involved regularly on the film music scene as well as with theatre, dance, and literature. As a leader, he is a solo pianist, leads his trio Delbecq 3, his quartet Delbecq 4, and performs as a member of a large number of collective bands as well as performing as a sideman. His first record as a leader, a quartet entitled Paintings with Guillaume Orti, Joe Carver, and Steve Argüelles was released on Deux Z (FR) in 1992.
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